The rabbit test, or "Friedman test", was an early pregnancy test developed in 1931 by Maurice Harold Friedman and Maxwell Edward Lapham at the University of Pennsylvania as an improvement on the 1927 test developed by Bernhard Zondek and Selmar Aschheim. The original test used mice and was based upon the observation that when urine from a woman in the early months of pregnancy is injected into immature female mice, the ovaries of the mice enlarge and show follicular maturation. The test was considered reliable, with an error rate of less than 2%. The rabbit test consisted of injecting the tested woman's urine into a female rabbit, and a few days later examining the rabbit's ovaries, which would change in response to a hormone secreted only by pregnant women. The hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), is produced during pregnancy and indicates the presence of a fertilized egg; it can be found in a pregnant woman's urine and blood. The rabbit test became a widely used bioassay (animal-based test) to test for pregnancy. The term "rabbit test" was first recorded in 1949 and became a common phrase in the English language.
Modern pregnancy tests still operate on the basis of testing for the presence of the hormone hCG. Due to medical advances, use of a live animal is no longer required.
It is a common misconception that the injected rabbit would die only if the woman was pregnant. This led to the phrase "the rabbit died" being used as a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test. In fact, all rabbits used for the test died, because they had to be surgically opened in order to examine the ovaries. While it was possible to do this without killing the rabbit, it was generally deemed not worth the trouble and expense.
A replacement for the rabbit test involved using frogs, specifically the African clawed frog, which, like all frogs, lays eggs instead of getting pregnant, and therefore can yield results without the need to cut the animal open.
Video Rabbit test
In Popular Culture
The test was featured in a 1978 M*A*S*H episode, with doctors removing the ovaries from a pet rabbit in order to perform the test and keep the rabbit alive.
The Aerosmith song "Sweet Emotion" has the line: "You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died"
The Eric Church song "Two Pink Lines" contains the line: "These days the rabbit doesn't die; you just sit around waiting on two pink lines."
In a 1962 episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show titled, "What's In a Middle Name?", Laura Petrie informs her husband Rob that she is pregnant by saying, "the rabbit died."
The 1978 film 'Rabbit Test', about the first man to become pregnant, was Joan Rivers's sole directorial effort, and starred Billy Crystal in his first film appearance.
August 1, 1979 Rodney Dangerfield on the Tonight Show: "I met a guy last week that told me he had an affair with a girl three months ago and he's going nuts, he didn't know what to do. He told me what happened was the rabbit didn't die, it just stays in critical condition."
The 2013 Cathy Kelly book The Honey Queen references the use of the rabbit test as a pregnancy indicator
The 2018 novel The Hellfire Club (book) by Jake Tapper references the test as well.
Maps Rabbit test
References
External links
- Aschheim-Zondek pregnancy reaction at Who Named It?
- The Rabbit Test at Snopes
- About dot Com Explanation at [German Inventions and Discoveries|About]
- Maurice Harold Friedman Obituary NY Times
Source of the article : Wikipedia